Image editing programs enable digital content creators to draw and/or edit digital images. An image editing program can include a graphical user interface in which a user can view and edit an image. In some examples, the image editing program includes drawing tools, such as pencils, brushes, and erasers, among other examples, each of which can include a number of controllable settings. The image editing program can further include editing tools, such as tools for selecting or deselecting areas of the image, for copying or moving pixels, for adjusting colors, luminance, or chrominance values for pixels, for transforming the size, shape, or orientation of a set of pixels, and other tools. In some examples, an image editing program can provide editing capabilities beyond what is possible using analog media. For example, the image editing program enable an image to be edited in a three-dimensional fashion, using layers. In this example, changes can be made to the pixels in one layer without affecting the pixels in another layer. Alternatively, one layer can affect or control the changes in another layer. Layers can be used for purposes such as these, and/or for many other uses.
The brush tool is one example of the drawing tools that may be available in an image editing program. The brush tool can give a user access to different types of brushes, each of which can have properties such as a size, shape, texture, edge characteristics, and/or various parameters that control the color, location, and/or number of pixels that are placed on the image with each brush stroke. Examples of different types of brushes include ones that mimic a physical paintbrush, and produces lines as would be produced by the hairs of the paintbrush; ones that mimic an airbrush, and places pixels as if sprayed onto the image; and ones that mimic felt-tipped markers, which produce brush strokes with harder edges, among many other examples. In various examples, the image editing tool can also include brushes that operate like stamps, which place copies of a shape on the image as a brush stroke is made. In some examples, the shapes being placed can have random characteristics, which can vary the size, orientation, and/or color (among other parameters) of the shapes being drawn. Once drawn, the pixels placed by the brush tool have a static shape, color, and location.
Tools such as the brush tool enable content creators to draw and paint digital images in an image editing program. To produce animations, the image editing program may enable a sequence of images to be output is a video or in an animated file format (such as the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF)). Alternatively or additionally, images drawn in an image editing tool can be imported into a video or animation editing program, which can enable frame-by-frame editing of a video or animation. In these and other examples, however, the content creator may be required to draw each frame of an animation. The image editing program may provide assistance in the drawing of an object in different positions, and the video editing program may provide assistance in the sequencing of the motions, but it may be left to the content creator to perform the drawing of the object, for each frame in an animation sequence.